A Failure of Expectations

Chapter 1

Caden

He winced as something dug into his back.

Did I fall asleep on my phone?

He rolled over, expecting relief. Instead there was more pain and unexpected hardness.

What the…..?

Opening his eyes to sunlight, he grimaced and brought a hand up. He sat up immediately as his eyes adjusted.

What the hell?!

Stretching as far as he could see was nothing but endless pristine grassland capped by blindingly blue, cloudless sky.

“Wha…what?” He spun his head around in a panic, taking in his surroundings.

His heart pounded. Taking a deep breath, he took another look around.

The only change in scenery was an occasional tree or rolling hill. No matter where he looked, it was the same idyllic landscape. He looked up and realized he was sitting under such a tree. He felt something painful under him and after lifting his thigh, saw it was a tree root. He took another deep breath, scanning the area.

“Hello? Anyone there?”

His voice faded into the distance.

“Anyone? Hello? This isn’t friggin’ funny!”

He took another breath in a vain effort to calm down. He couldn’t see or hear anyone. He seemed alone.

“Ok, Caden. Stop. Think. What did you do last night?”

Nothing. Nothing stood out to him. The commute home. An empty apartment. Leftover pizza. Netflix on the couch. Facebook on his phone until he fell asleep.

My phone!

He looked around in a panic. He felt nothing around him. Standing up, a scan around him revealed nothing either. As he looked down at his body, he finally realized what he was wearing.

I’M STILL IN MY PAJAMAS!

He was clad in black gym shorts and a wrinkled white t-shirt. He looked down to see grass between his toes.

Great.

Taking another deep breath, he scrubbed his hands over his face, hoping he’d open his eyes to his bedroom.

Nope. Still here.

“Ok dude. Think. You went to bed and….woke up here.” He looked around. “WHERE THE HELL AM I?”

He scanned the area again, looking for anything that might give him a clue. Grass. Trees. Azure sky. He could be in almost any temperate part of the country. Of many countries.

How did I get here?

His mind raced through the last few days. His life had been the picture of normal. He went to work, came home and sat in an empty apartment while Netflix binged on the TV and a frozen dinners cooked in the oven.

“Was I kidnapped?” He took a look at himself. No bruises. No signs of a struggle.He looked perfectly fine. He tried to remember if anything had woken him up last night. Nothing. He had slept like the dead.

Kidnapped? He almost laughed.

“Why would anyone kidnap me?” He worked as a gym teacher and lived in an apartment furnished with the best Ikea he could assemble. His father was a retired postman and his mother hadn’t worked. His ransom wouldn’t be worth the gas they spent to get him.

He thought of his coworkers and friends. Did they know he was missing by now? Had anyone reported it? What about his parents?

Would they even care?

He scrubbed his face again and took another deep breath. Brooding on that wasn’t going to help anything.

“Stop. Stop and calm down.” He forced himself to talk calmly. “You aren’t hurt. You aren’t in pain. You aren’t………” he took a few steps from the tree “….tied down.”

No, you're just standing in the middle of The Shire in your jammies.

...At least the weather’s nice.

Despite the circumstances, he could feel himself calming down slightly. He didn’t seem to be in any imminent danger and he wasn’t hurt.

He paced around the tree. ”What the hell do I do now?”

Wait, what’s that?

He saw something moving across the horizon from quite far away. He squinted, trying to get a better look.

“What...the hell?”

He rubbed his eyes and looked again. He could barely make out what looked like a large pair of wings and some kind of head. Whatever it was had a dark grey body and some sort of white accent on the head.

“No friggin way….”

He rubbed his eyes and took another look as it quickly moved out of sight.

“That looked like a……” he shook his head. “You’re seeing shit Caden.”

“Maybe it was a drone or something.” He stared off towards where it had flown out of sight. “Maybe if I head that direction I’ll find whoever was controlling it.”

“Or maybe you’ll run straight into whoever brought you here.”

“I guess I could stay here.” He looked at the tree. “No food or water. It’s also possible whoever brought me here will come back to look for me.” He bit his lip. “Do I really want to wait for them?”

He looked up. “No. If they dropped me here or...forgot me or whatever, I’d rather get as far from here as I can.”

He looked off towards the direction the drone had flown.

“Maybe I’ll find some help if I go that way. Better than staying here and starving.”

He looked down at his bare feet. Lifting one up, he gave the underside a glance. 20 years of track and marathons had blessed him with heavy calluses.

If I stick to the grass I should probably be ok. It seems to stretch on towards where…..whatever that was flew.

He took one more look around. It was as empty and pristine as when he woke up. He sighed.

Hopefully this doesn’t bite me in the ass. Literally.

He took a deep breath and slapped himself on the cheeks.

“All right, Caden. Let’s go.”

Cresting the tallest hill he had come across so far, Caden stopped to address the ache in his bare feet. Sitting down, he grabbed a foot and did his best to work the soreness out. As he traveled, the terrain gradually became more varied with steadily increasing tree cover.

At least it’s been grass so far. Walking on rocks would suck.

He hadn’t seen any signs of civilization yet. Besides the random bird, rabbit or other small creature, he hadn’t run into any kind of life at all. No food or water either.

He looked up as he started working on the other foot. The hills got steadily steeper from here and more importantly he could see a line of graying clouds snaking towards him. The furthest clouds looked significantly darker than the leading edge. He looked to be heading straight for a pretty powerful thunderstorm.

Fantastic.

He watched the storm clouds for a moment, noticing how they were getting rapidly larger.

I guess I could turn around or go the other way.

He winced as his hands found a particularly tender spot. He eased his grip, slowly kneading out the pain.

No. I’ll keep going. Even if I turn around, the storm might follow me.

He scanned the trees again. I really don’t want to be under trees during a lightning storm.

He thought of the plain behind him. Better than being out in the open though

He stopped the massage and stood up. Maybe I’ll find somewhere to take shelter soon. Or maybe find wherever that drone went.

He also knew there was a chance he’d run into whoever had brought him here. The more he thought about his situation, the more bizarre it became. How did he get here without being woken up? He didn’t feel like he had been drugged. How was he moved here without any kind of bruise, cut, torn shirt or anything?

Why had they just seemingly dumped or forgotten him in the middle of nowhere? Why him at all? How did they get into his apartment? The whole situation made his brain hurt. He looked around again.

And where is here? I live in Colorado. There’s nowhere like this for hundreds...maybe thousands of miles.

Even a thousand miles away, he was having a hard time placing where in the U.S he might be. To say the landscape was pristine was the understatement of the century. He had only seen nature this brilliant in books or movies. Everything was as green as it could be, as blue as it could be. He didn’t know if he had ever smelled air this clean. There were no roads or paths. He hadn’t even seen or heard a plane! The weird drone thing was all he’d encountered. Wherever he was, it hadn’t been touched much by humans, if at all.

He shook his head. He had spent a fair amount of the trip thus far trying to get a grasp on his situation. The more he thought about it, the more confused he felt.

His eyes snapped up to the rapidly growing grey wall.

Let’s just find shelter, that’s priority one.

He started moving again, this time moving at a full jog. He made his way over hill after hill, stopping only to brush the occasional rock off the soles of his feet. His feet were really starting to hurt. Years of track or not, he wasn’t used to running through nature in his bare feet.

After a while, he capped another hill and came to a small valley laden with trees. From here it looked like the tree cover increased significantly past the valley.

Looking up, he saw the storm had already gotten noticeably closer. Between the rapid darkening of the clouds and the sun setting, he was losing light quickly.

Shit.

He stopped and gave the grove a once over. It would probably provide adequate shelter through the storm.

Better a bunch of trees than out in the open. Less lightning chance that way.

He jogged down the hill and towards the grove. By the time he arrived the wind was picking up significantly. He could see towering, dark clouds surging as flashes of light danced across the wall. Thunder rumbled across the plane towards him.

“Need to find something. Fast!”

A gust of leaves whirled by him as the wind began whistling through the tree line. Through the upper layers he could see the sky roiling above him. He doubled his search effort.

Before long he found a spot that seemed suitable enough to keep him out of the rain. One tree split down the middle and formed a sort of natural overhang that he hoped would keep him dry. Kicking as many rocks, fallen leaves and bits out of the hole as he could, he settled down.

By now the thunder had grown significantly louder and he could tell that the source of the flashes of light coming between the canopy weren’t coming from too far away. Within a few moments, the wind kicked up even more and he heard the first drops hitting the ground somewhere in the grove.

Shivering, he rubbed his hands along either arm. A fire would be nice. He sighed, thinking back to a time when his Dad had talked him out of joining the Cub Scouts. How he’d been talked into year after year of sports instead.

Thank again Dad. Fucking waste of goddamn time.

He pushed the memory away and decided to settle in. Leaning back in his nook, he watched as the storm continued to increase in intensity. Before long the sky went completely black; through lightning strikes he watched the sky roil above him. In a matter of seconds, the rain went from a few drops to a torrent.

He crawled as far back into the nook as he could but it wasn’t much help. Aided by the wind, the rain was pelting him. He shivered again and watched as the storm continued to get worse. The rain was loud now, loud enough that he would have had to yell to hear himself talk. Thunder rumbled every few seconds and the sky strobed above.

It was between two such bursts that he caught his first glimpse of them. In the darkness across the grove, he saw two glowing emerald green spots floating behind the rain. As he watched, they blinked in and out of existence a few times, growing slightly larger between each blink. After a moment, two more sets joined on either side of them.

It didn’t take long to figure out what they were. “Those are…..oh shit….”

A rapid series of lightning strikes revealed his stalkers.

“What the fuck?” He barely got the words out as his mind tried to comprehend what he was looking at.

The wolf’s entire body was a mass of moving sticks and logs. Even the teeth were small, sharply pointed sticks. He couldn’t see what was holding them together; they just seemed to move as one large mass. Their eyes glowed a deep emerald green, almost as if made of energy. They were approaching him, slinking across the grove. Wood or not, their intent was clear.

“WHAT THE FUCK?” He shot out from his shelter and immediately looked around to see if there was anything around him he could use as a weapon. A few branches and small rocks littered the area but he didn’t see anything sizeable enough to use as a weapon.

“Doubt I can outrun them.” He took a panicked glance around. “The tree. Maybe I can climb it.”

It was hard to see any noticeable distance between the rain and the dark. Finally he spied one long, thick horizontal branch from the main trunk that was probably seven or eight feet in the air. He looked back over his shoulder to see that the wolves were now in a full run at him. Sprinting forward, he splashed through the mud and jumped up towards the branch with all the adrenaline-fueled strength he could find.

He was able to get enough height to wrap both arms around it. The limb itself was soaked and as soon as he’d stepped out from his shelter, he’d been drowned in rain. He felt his grip slipping. Gritting his teeth, he tried to reassert his grip. Almost immediately upon doing so, the strength in his left shoulder faded as fire laced its way across his chest and arm.

He screamed as somewhere in the back of his mind a memory of him lying on a track, clutching his shoulder and crying surfaced.

“Come on. Not now dammit! Pull Caden! PULL!”

He was making headway when he felt himself lurch down as excruciating pain erupted from his left leg. He cried out again and looked down. One of the wolves’ jaws were clamped down on his left calf. He heard it snarl and felt it shake its body, trying to loosen him from the branch. He could see blood running down through the jaws. The other two were jumping and trying to grab his other leg. As it shook, he felt something give way and the wolf fell from his leg.

Summoning the last of his strength, he pushed through the fire in his shoulder and got his right leg up and around the branch. All three wolves began jumping at the branch, barking and growling at their escaped prey.

Using his good leg and arm, he pushed himself back on the branch until he was leaning against the trunk. Every push became harder than the last, as the pain in both his shoulder and leg was getting progressively worse.

He pulled the leg up closer to him to inspect the wounds. Large gashes ran along either side of his calf where the wolf’s teeth had ripped the flesh away. It felt like the wound was burning.

He could feel himself starting to go into shock. Taking a deep breath, he pulled his shirt off and tried to tie it around his upper calf. Even with the makeshift tourniquet, blood was still gushing from the wounds. He could feel the burning sensation making its way up his thigh.

“Shit...shit shit shit...” he whimpered through clenched teeth. “Calm...calm down Caden.” He tried to slow his breathing, to little success.

Below him, the three were still jumping and nipping at the air through a series of growls and snarls. He knew unless they left, there was no way he was going to be able to get out of the tree. He wasn’t even sure at this point if he’d be able to get down with his leg in the condition it was anyway. The firey sensation had passed his thigh and was now working its way into his lower abdomen.

“HELP! ANYONE, PLEASE HELP!” Rain battered him as his voice faded into the weather. Panic rose in his chest and he felt his lip quiver. Was he going to die here? He heard his voice warble at the next call. He doubted at this point that anyone would be able to hear him over the noise from the storm but he knew it was all he could do.

“PLEASE! ANYONE? HELP!” He called out over and over.

Over the next several minutes, the burning sensation slowly made its way to his chest and he felt himself starting to go lightheaded. The wolves were still down there, circling patiently for their meal.

Some time went by. He wasn’t sure how much. He could feel himself slowly losing consciousness. He kept calling as long as he could but he knew by now he was barely moaning the words out. He was having a hard time staying up in a sitting position. It took all the strength he had left to stay upright and not fall off the branch and down to the wolves.

Through the haze, he thought he heard something loud rumble from the other side of the grove. Looking down, he saw the wolves suddenly look off in that direction before tearing away quickly.

What…?

He saw two blurs come out of the far edge of the grove and make their way towards his tree. One very large and brown and the other small and yellow.

He could barely process that when the yellow blur suddenly shot up into the air towards him. He thought he heard a soft voice say something. Whatever was said, it was indecipherable. He felt something soft touch his cheek and he tried to focus on the yellow blur.

He managed to get one clear look before he passed out. He almost laughed. Ha! You’ve lost it dude. You’re hallucinating a yellow pegasus.

BOOM!

Twilight looked up from her report as a thunderclap echoed throughout her castle. Rain pounded against her massive bedroom windows as lightning lit up the angry, blackened sky.

“Spike?”

A distracted voice came from the floor by the foot of her bed.“Yes, Twilight?”

“When did it start storming?” She stood up from where she had been curled up on her bed and jumped down to the floor.

“About thirty minutes ago.”

She came around the corner of the bed to find the tiny dragon reclined against a pillow, nose buried in a comic book. More were strewn around him.

“Thirty minutes ago? The Cloudsdale Weather Report said it wasn’t supposed to start until 7:00.” She looked over at the clock on the wall and groaned when she saw the hands read 7:30.

“How long have I been reading?”

He lazily flipped a page with a claw. “About two hours.”

“Two hours?! What about dinner?”

Without looking up, he pointed the same claw across the room to a tray sitting on a table. A daisy and daffodil sandwich sat on a plate, next to a pot of tea that she guessed had probably long since gone cold. An empty plate with a few crumbs sat next to those

“I brought dinner around six. You told me to set it over there and said you’d get to it after your page.”

She slapped a hoof to her face. “Sorry Spike.” She picked the sandwich up with her magic and floated it over to her.

He set his comic down and got up as she took a huge bite of the floating dinner. He walked over to the dinner tray. “No worries Twilight. I was able to finish the first eight volumes of the most recent Power Ponies series.” Picking up the teapot, he inhaled deeply and blew a stream of green fire at the pot. Moments later, steam began pouring from the spout.

Taking another bite of her sandwich, Twilight levitated the pot out of his claws and began pouring herself a cup. “Thmeks Spek. Jid dyu get ur chorz dun?”

He turned to her and raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you always tell me to not talk and chew at the same time?”

She swallowed and stuck her tongue out at him. “Smarty scales. Did you get your chores done?”

He nodded. “After I brought dinner.” He shook his head. “Man, you must have really been absorbed in that report. Missing one thing going on around you is normal but you missed dinner, my chores AND the storm. That’s a lot even for you.”

She wolfed down the last of her sandwich and sipped on her tea. Outside, lightning illuminated the village of Ponyville spreading out from the castle. “I know. I know. I’m sorry.”

He walked over and looked out the window with her. “What are you reading anyway?”

“It’s a quarterly report on all the crimes committed in Equestria. Princess Celestia sent it to me earlier.”

“Why is Princess Celestia sending you a report on crimes? Isn’t that something for the Royals Guards or the Defense Forces?”

She nodded. “Normally yes but there have been some weird thefts reported lately. She wanted me to look at it to see if I could…”

She was cut off as a deep chime reverberated throughout the castle. She and Spike looked at each other.

“The doorbell? Are you expecting anypony?”

The tiny drake shook his head. “Nope.”

They exited her bedroom and made their way to the foyer. As they came to the main hallway, two more unicorns emerged from another part of the castle.

“Starlight, Sunset, are either of you expecting somepony?”

Both shook their heads.

Starlight groaned as the four approached the door. “I swear if Trixie forgot her bits again, I’m gonna strangle her.”

As they made it to the immense front door, Sunset opened it with her magic. Once the green wreathed door slid open, they jumped back as a dripping mess of yellow and pink dove, squeaking, into Twilight.

“Fluttershy?!”

A thunderclap ripped across the sky, causing the trembling pegasus to shriek and press herself further into Twilight. Sunset grabbed the door in her magic again and quickly closed it.

Twilight reached a hoof up and wrapped it around her soaking friend. “Fluttershy? What in Equestria are you doing here? Why were you out in this weather?” Fluttershy’s fear of thunder and lightning was well known among her friends.

“Come on, let’s get you inside. Spike, go grab some towels.”

“On it!”

Fluttershy shook her head and squeaked something out from Twilights chest fur.

“Flutters? What did you say?”

“...pital”

“Fluttershy I can’t understan…”

The dripping mare pulled back, took a deep breath and yelled “HOSPITAL!!” before shrieking and burying her head under her front hooves as another round of thunder echoed through the castle.

The three looked at each other and back at Fluttershy. Sunset stepped forward and set a hoof on Fluttershys quaking back. “Hospital? Fluttershy are you ok? Do you need to go to the hospital?”

Pulling her hooves off her muzzle, she stood back up and took a deep breath. “Iwashidingundermybedwaitingforthestormtostopwhenmyanimalsheardsomethingcallingforhelpinthewoods!”

Another look passed between the three as Spike returned with a stack of towels. Using her magic, Twilight wrapped several of them around her friend.

“Ok. One more time please. What happened at the hospital?”

Taking another deep breath and swallowing, Fluttershy pulled a towel tighter around herself and started over. “I was hiding under my bed, waiting for the storm to stop. I had just settled down with some snacks and a nice pot of tea when a few of my animals told me they heard something weird from the woods.” She winced as another thunderclap rocked the castle but managed to keep her composure. “I was going to ignore it but they said it sounded like it was in pain. I couldn’t leave some poor creature in pain, so I decided to go find out what was going on.”

Twilight hugged her friend with a wing. “That was very brave of you.”

“When I opened the door, they said it smelled like there were Timberwolves, so I decided to take Harry with me.”

Starlight nodded. “A bear would be a good escort.”

“Harry led me to a small valley not too far from my cottage. When we got there, he scared off some Timberwolves.” Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked up at them. “Oh Twilight it was terrible. We found...something there. Up in a tree. It was barely conscious when we got there and it was soaked and shivering too. I think it had been out in the storm for quite a while.”

Starlight stepped forward. “Fluttershy, what do you mean ‘something’. What was this creature?”

She sniffed. “That’s why partly why I’m here. I don’t know what it was.”

Twilight looked up at Sunset and Starlight wide eyed. There were barely any creatures on Equus, let alone Equestria that Fluttershy didn’t have at least a passing knowledge of.

“Can you describe it?”

“That’s just it. I’ve never seen anything like it before. No claws or wings. No hooves. No fur or scales.” She shook her head, taking another deep breath to calm herself. “It’s big. Not as big as Harry or a dragon but much bigger than a Pony. Bigger than Celestia. It was wearing clothes. My animals heard it calling out. They said it kept saying the same thing over and over again.”

Twilight frowned. While Equus was filled with its share of unique creatures, the idea of some unknown species wandering towards Ponyville in the middle of the night was concerning.

“If it was speaking and wearing clothes, I’m guessing it must be something sentient.”

Fluttershy nodded. “I thought so too. It was running a terrible fever and seemed to be in a lot of pain so we took it to Ponyville Hospital.”

“Timberwolf venom causes a fever. That explains the leg. It must of climbed the tree to get away from them.” Sunset said.

“I got it to Ponyville Hospital with Harry’s help about twenty minutes ago. After they took the creature, I sent him home and flew straight here.”

Twilight hugged her friend again. “Thank you Fluttershy. Honestly though, you could have waited at the hospital till the storm was over. If this thing is as injured as you say, it’s likely going to be unconscious for quite some time.”

Fluttershy shook her head. “That’s not the only reason why I flew over so fast.”

“Why then?”

“Well when we got there, one of the unicorn nurses tried to use her magic to lift it onto a gurney.” She looked up at them. “Her magic didn’t seem to work on it.”

The three unicorns spoke in unison. “What?”

“Her horn lit up and I saw her magic wrap around the creature like normal. The nurse looked like she was struggling, kind of like you girls do when you're doing a really complicated spell. After a few seconds, it barely twitched and the spell fizzled away. The nurse said she had never seen anything like it before and asked me to fly over here as fast as I could and tell you.”

Twilight shot up and looked down at her assistant. “Spike, please take Fluttershy somewhere and help her get dry.”

He nodded. “Got it Twilight.”

She looked between her students. “We’re teleporting to the hospital.” They nodded, the concern on their faces as clear as it was on hers.

Fluttershy backed up from them. “What do you think it is Twilight?”

She shook her head. “I have no idea Fluttershy.” She grimaced. “I really have no idea.”

With that, the three unicorns vanished in a trio of white flashes.